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“Ordinary people are the heroes in stories and in life. Everybody struggles to live their life. They try to put the pieces together, try to make it work. And I think that, in ordinariness is often seated a great deal of dignity.“
"I'm very musical. I improvise. I sit and write the way a pianist composing might sit at the keyboard. I start with a central image ... and I go with it. And sometimes it doesn't work. But generally, I'm looking for the point where the character will speak to me. And then, I'm not exactly in control of it anymore. ... I think that's very common in any kind of art form, and certainly would be true if I were composing music. I listen for the sound of it. I listen for the chords. I listen for the way the themes move. And when it's affecting me powerfully and when I'm finding that the rhythm is right, the downbeat is correct, the emotional movement is moving me, then I'm hopeful that will be true for other people." ~ Richard Currey
A Glimpse of Richard Currey
Richard Currey grew up in Parkersburg, son of a schoolteacher father and a mom who had grown up on a mountain subsistence farm. His dad was descended from one of four brothers, who came from Ireland and settled in Harrison County.
He grew up hearing stories. "Everybody told stories," he said. "Everybody at the table. Everybody at the Sunday dinners. Everybody at Easter picnics. My grandparents would tell the stories of their days growing up, which went back to the turn of the century. My parents would argue over the destinies of cousins, nephews, and wayward uncles. The stories were everywhere. It was an environment. It was like being in a kind of water. I swam in it."
Now, his books have been translated into 12 language. A Los Angeles Times reviewer described Currey's writing as "word-sparing, stark, locomotive-driven, prose that would set to thumping the heart of any lover of the English language." He served in Vietnam with the US Navy for four years, where he was a medic in a marine combat unit. His first book, Fatal Light, is regarded as one of the best books to come out of the Vietnam War.
In this program, he reads from stories about the West Virginia Mine Wars, the Vietnam War, musicians, and murders. He sets most of his writing in West Virginia, which he calls "my mythic ground." "I wanted to be a writer," he said. "I just liked to do it. It was really that simple. I liked to do it."
He is also a musician. It shows in his writing. "I feel strongly that [writing] rises from the same creative place in me, and I use all the same tools composing a paragraph, a story, a book that I would use composing a piece of music." In his books, Currey brings us stories about ordinary people struggling to deal with terrifying, soul-stretching situations.